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Square Enix Publishing Ankama's Wakfu In North America
by Eric Caoili [PC, Console/PC]
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September 3, 2010
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Square Enix announced that it is releasing Wakfu, an upcoming free-to-play tactical MMORPG from French developer and publisher Ankama Games (Dofus series), to North America.
Wakfu features an anime-style world, 12 character classes (each with a total of 25 spells), customizable characters, and a turn-based, tactical combat system. Players actions also affect the game's environments, in that killing a particular monster or mining an ore can prevent that creature/resource from appearing again.
In France, Ankama's Animation branch produced a cartoon series based on Wakfu, which will begin airing its second season next year. Square Enix hasn't yet announced any plans to bring the TV show or other Wakfu-related properties to North America.
Though Ankama's titles aren't that well-known in the States, its titles are extremely popular in French-speaking regions (e.g. France, Belgium, Switzerland) -- Dofus alone has more than 35 million registered users. As of last April, 3.5 million of those users paid a €5 ($6.42) monthly fee to access all of the game's content.
"Given our common knowledge of tactical fighting systems and engaging multiplayer experiences, Square Enix constitutes the ideal teammate for Ankama," says Ankama's CEO and co-founder Emmanuel Darras. "This teaming is a key factor for the success of Wakfu's transmedia universe that includes the Wakfu TV series, the MMO, the trading card game, the manga, and the action figures."
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